Instead, the team will have to make do without starting small forward DeMarre Carroll for quite some time after he underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee in Manhattan on Wednesday morning to put an end to the pain he had been suffering.

Carroll had returned for five games after missing nine due to a knee contusion, but was clearly not right and hinted at a bigger problem in Cleveland, telling us ominously, “I don’t want to say too much, but at the same time, man, only if you knew.”

Less than 48 hours later, the 29-year-old, who was signed to a four-year, $60-million deal last summer and is the club’s highest-paid player, went under the knife.

There are murmurs around the league that this, combined with the plantar fasciitis he also had been dealing with and scarring from previous issues, could end Carroll’s season.

But the Raptors are quietly confident he will return before the playoffs, which could limit any compensatory wheeling and dealing to make up for his absence.

The players believe he’ll be back, too.

“He won’t be out for the year,” all-star point guard Kyle Lowry defiantly told the Toronto Sun after shootaround on Wednesday morning.

Lowry hinted that Carroll is kicking himself for not having surgery sooner, ensuring he’d be able to work out any rust well before the post-season.

“It’s disappointing because he feels like he could have gotten it done and taken care of,” Lowry told the Sun. “But he’s a soldier, so I think he’s going to rehab strong and get back to normal quickly. For now, we’ve just got to hold it down. It’s not the first year we’ve had to deal with injuries.”

That’s true — just last season, Lowry had to carry the load when all-star DeMar DeRozan missed 16 games due to a groin injury.

At least this time, the two stars can help keep the team afloat together, along with the rest of the roster.

“It sucks. I know what it feels like,” DeRozan told reporters. “Me knowing him, he wants to be there for us as a team, that’s the type of guy he is. We’ve just got to do the best we can for him and keep him positive.

“As a team, everybody’s got to step up, including myself, and do a lot more when you’re missing a key player like DeMarre. It’s all part of the game. We had to deal with it last year. It just sucks when you have to deal with an injury, we just have to use it as extra motivation.”

Head coach Dwane Casey said James Johnson and Terrence Ross will rotate starts, depending on matchups.

“Next guy’s got to step up. It’s an opportunity — unfortunate opportunity — when somebody goes down, the most important thing is DeMarre’s health, making sure he gets back 100 per cent,” Casey said.

“But, again, it’s an opportunity for a lot of guys who have got to play those big, power threes as we call them. James is going to have first opportunity. DeMar’s going to have to do it, Terrence is going to have to do it. Possibly (Anthony Bennett) when he gets healthy and possibly (Patrick Patterson). It’s going to be by committee, as far as guarding that position is concerned.”

Johnson is eager to contribute, after seeing his minutes decimated whenever Carroll was healthy.

“Yeah, of course (he is excited), but it’s a sucky situation, one of our guys got to go down, and a good guy, for me to play, but that’s the game, that’s the league,” Johnson said.

“The season unfolds, a lot of different injuries, and it’s just my time to step up.”

It should probably be considered good news that the knee was not the same one that buckled in the playoffs last season, forcing him to hobble through the final three contests of a four-game sweep in the Eastern Conference finals. That brought about a premature end to Carroll’s career season with the Hawks, one that saw him average 12.6 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.3 steals, while connecting on 39.5% of his three-point attempts. That was before he heated up in the post-season, averaging about 17 points and seven rebounds while shooting 44% from outside in the first two rounds before spraining his left knee. He also suffered a hip pointer in the previous round.

The hope in Toronto now is that the opposite scenario will unfold this year, with Carroll putting an injury-plagued regular campaign behind him and returning just in time for a playoff push fully healthy.

While the contract is a concern given his run of injuries, unlike most veterans his age, Carroll really doesn’t have a ton of wear-and-tear because he did not become a full-time NBAer until the 2012-13 season.

That said, he has admitted to knee pain while at college, likely because he was compensating after getting shot in the leg while trying to break up a fight, which caused him to stay an extra year at Missouri to get healthier.

Carroll averaged 11.7 points, 4.8 rebounds in 31.9 minutes in 23 games as a Raptor, but often noted how he wasn’t happy with his performances because he clearly wasn’t moving around the way he is capable of and was under a minutes restriction since his most recent return to the lineup.

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